Department Sanitation, Water and Solid Waste for Development

Palmas, the capital of the Brazilian state of Tocantins faces various water challenges such as water losses, pollution, and equitable allocation of water to different stakeholders. Planning and governance challenges are being aggravated by climate change.

In this project we are testing in an integrated manner the combination of two methodologies to analyze and improve water management including scarcity, flooding & water quality issues in an urban context. While community participation, leadership, and governance have been identified as key factors for water management, more research is needed to explore how these factors interact and influence the success of community practice in water governance.

For data collection and analysis an action research approach is being implemented with a combination of the Water Flow Diagram (WFD) and the Viable System Model (VSM).

The WFD is a visual tool to understand water stocks, uses, and flows and identifies appropriate and problematic practices within a defined area. It allows to show a complete picture linking the human right to water and sanitation, integrated water resource management, and resilience. The aim is to better understand how to embed the WFD in a structured decision-making process.

The VSM analyses the governance system's elements and their interactions with the aim to understand the viability. A set of control mechanisms are being analyzed which describe the necessary and sufficient preconditions for the viability of any human or social system

Data for the application of these two instruments are being collected on-site from the official utilities and during stakeholder interviews. Project results are being jointly analyzed during co-creation workshops with stakeholders and potential solutions for the improvement of water management and governance in Palmas will be developed.

The project's objectives are to:

• identify challenges in water supply and water quality management in Palmas, including areas of vulnerability for climate change related risks (scarcity, flooding, water contamination),
• document community practices in water governance and identify potential fields for improvement,
• in co-creation workshops with the local stakeholders develop potential solutions for the identified water challenges.